b'Optimism and Uncertainty Reignby Ted Kreis, NPPGA Marketing and Communications Directorhigh since the early summer of I am confident we will.Here at2019 and they stayed high until NPPGA,newpromotionsarejustrecently.ButinAugust beingplannedasothershavewhen the summer crop came in fallen victim to the pandemic.fromWisconsinandCentral ThePMAFreshSummitMinnesotastocksreturnedto tradeshow is just one example.morenormallevelsandpricesdroppedquickly.Retailbuyers Speakingofthepandemic,however,didntrespondwith COVID-19hasalsocausedlowerretailpricesandpromo- much uncertainty in all sectorstional advertising.Instead they ofthepotatoindustry.Therewerecontentwiththehigh havebeenhugeshiftsinthemargins on red potatoes while wayconsumersconsumetheirprice-promoting russets. potatoes. There has been a bigManyareapotatogrowersare switchfromeatingouttoeat-cautiously optimistic about this With retail buyers having been ingathome.Thefoodserviceyears crop. As of mid August, conditionedtoalimitedred sectorwhichsuppliesrestau-most potato fields in the region marketforsometime,mar- rants and large institutions likelooked very good but unfortu- ketersandsalespeoplewill hospitals and cafeterias, initial-nately, some of the same grow- havetoworkhardthisfallto lytookan80to90percentersthathadheavylosseslast get the red movement back, but drop in business because of thefallduetopreventedharvesthavereceivedtoomuchrainagainearlierthissummer.Estimates are that about 10-15percent of the potato acres havebeenlosttodrown-outintheRedRiverValleyregionthissummer.Hopefullytherewillbe better than average yields onhigher ground to mitigate someof those losses. Therearealsomarketuncer-tainties.Limited supplies havePacking sheds in the Red River Valley are looking forward to a fresh startcausedredpotatopricestobe this fall.4 POTATO GROWER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020'